Narrative Uber Alles. By the Z Man.

It used to be that when a famous person got into trouble, he did one of two things. Either he presented the facts in order to explain his behavior or he went away in disgrace. Then narrative creators came along to present a third option. They would create a story for the person to tell that would contextualize his actions in such a way as to make his accusers into the bad guys and himself into the victim.

That last bit seems to have had a mesmerizing effect on the managerial classes, as they no long respond to scandal in the old way. Joe Biden is as crooked as a ram’s horn but displays no shame nor an inclination to explain himself. Instead, the content creators in the media have created a narrative to contextualize his corruption as part of a partisan plot against him. In this age, facts are no longer important, because they are controlled by the prevailing narrative.

January 6, now that the Republican House is handing over all video content to Tucker Carlson (I’d prefer it if they made all the video public, rather than hand it to just their story tellers, but that’s better than letting the left’s narrative spinners hog it):

The claim here is that without the proper narrative, people may come to an unwanted conclusion about the events of that day. Most people would read that and think the content creators are afraid of having their lies exposed. That may be part of it, but the main reason for the letter is they think narrative is reality. They think Tucker Carlson will create a new narrative to supplant the old narrative, which is the reality in which all of them exist.

What we are seeing with our ruling class is they have come to think of their tall tales as reality, while reality itself is a conspiracy theory.

In the case of January 6th, they think the insurrection story is real. In that story, cops were killed by an angry mob trying to overthrow the government. It is a conspiracy theory to point out that the only person killed was a white woman executed by a black man. The former is their reality, while reality is a reckless conspiracy theory. …

They live in a world of words and stories, cosseted from the hard facts of reality:

It is as if the people in charge think that if they tell the story the right way, with the right amount of enthusiasm, it will change reality to match the narrative. As we see with the Tucker Carlson story, these people think reality is literally a creation of their imagination. Whoever produces the best tale gets to shape reality.

This is what drives them to rewrite history. We get movies about Vikings featuring African actors because the past is just a story. That means they can change the past by writing Africans into Beowulf. You go girl can be the reason men walked on the moon, simply by creating a narrative in which you go girl wrote all the software used to get the astronauts into space. For the managerial class, these tales they spin for themselves are more real than reality itself.

As insane as it looks to the normal people on the outside looking in on these people as they create these whoppers, it is not without logic. In a world dominated by words, rather than deeds, a good story is better than a good deed.

Look at the resumes of the people running the West and you find no one who has done anything in his life other than talk to others in his class. The resumes of these people are stories about themselves that contain no truth value.

Pete Buttigieg, Transport Secretary, for example

Can a society run with a ruling class living in an alternative reality? Clearly in can for a little while, at least until reality intrudes on the fantasy.

Perhaps the people who live in reality and make the world possible will keep on providing the energy to keep the system going. Maybe the system is on autopilot now.

Alternatively, reality could be prepping for its violent return to the main stage of life and the storytellers are headed for a terrible end to their own narrative.

South Africa went for 28 years living the dream of DEI and CRT,  before being whacked by reality.